Saturday, September 27, 2008

Here's an interesting graph that summarizes a pulled pork cooking session I did.

I did not record the cooker and meat temperature at strict intervals, which looks a little funny on the graph. I am sure that the meat temperature reached 140 degrees or more within the 4 hour health department guideline.

The temperature decline at the end of the session represents the "rest period" before pulling it apart for supper.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I've been enjoying some vacation days at home this week. A little cleaning, a little cooking, and some yard work later I sat down and watched some TV yesterday.

I ran across a new Food Network program that is totally fresh and happening. It's called Cooking for Real and it's hosted by Sunny Anderson. She made some cider brined fried chicken and cabbage slaw that looked intersting. After cooking it myself, I'm a big fan of Sunny Anderson.

I made Sunny's fried chicken for supper last night. Linda loved it so much that she proclaimed it the best fried chicken she'd ever eaten. If you're looking for a crispy and crunchy fried chicken recipe look no further. Read the recipe.

I cut back on the cayenne and used 1 tablespoon each of black pepper, white pepper, and cayenne, which turned out well.

Note: The pepper goes in the egg wash instead of the flour/corn starch. Also, instead of rolling the chicken in the flour, you've got to try the brown paper bag shake method. It really works.

I've written about my own personal strategies to reduce costs and increase revenues from my contest efforts on this blog in the past, but it's not an isolated problem. Affordability issues affect all teams that compete.

To my knowledge neither sanctioning organization has ever held any training seminars that offered step-by-step guides to assist the individual cook teams in obtaining sponsorship for local, regional, or national contests. Doing so would have a three-fold benefit:

3) contest organizers would receive more participation and increased revenues

I'd bet that I'm a pretty good cross-section of the barbecue population that competes in bbq contests on a semi-regular basis. I've competed in at least 25 sanctioned bbq contests during the past several years. I driven thousands of miles to get to them and spent more than $20,000 on bbq related events and equipment.

I've met some nice people. I've seen some nice areas of the country that I would have never visited if they hadn't sponsored a bbq contest. And, I've helped raise money for many, many charitable and municipal organizations. However, if something doesn't change, I'm going to have to stop doing it and I suspect that there are hundreds, if not thousands of teams like mine who have reached the same cross-roads.

The price of gasoline, meat, supplies, lodging, vehicles, contest entry fees, and cookers have continued to rise while the prize money awarded has remained stagnant on the whole. If you don't win first or second overall, you're in the hole at the end of the weekend.

I am not a professional marketer, but I am guessing that the membership of KCBS and FBA has many professional marketers in the ranks who would be willing to offer assistance. If not, I would think that a portion of the membership or sanctioning fees should be allocated to preparing downloadable materials that could be used by cook teams to solicit local and regional sponsorship. Who else other than the sanctioning bodies can provide the kind of economic data that would strengthen the sales pitch to potential sponsors?

If you agree that there is a disconnect, I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts and ideas. Or if you disagree with me and think that sponsorship for individual cook teams has nothing to do with the sanctioning body, I'd also enjoy hearing from you.

In the end, there is another alternative, although I know it's probably not practical or viable economically given the approach the contest organizers are currently taking -- reduce the entry fees to $0 and increase public participation in the contests to offset the lost revenue.

You'd be surprised how far that $250-$300 would go toward increasing cook team participation. In this manner even a top three or four in a category or two would have meaningful effects to help defray cook team expenses.

The KCBS Barbeque State Championship presented by East Coast Eventz, Inc. is being held November 14 -16 . The bbq contest will award $4,000 to the grand champion and $2,000 to the reserve grand champion. Category winners receive $500 for first place.

The entry fee for the bbq contest is $245 for KCBS members who enter early. Early entrants who are non-KCBS members can register for $280. The event is being held at the War Memorial Auditorium located at 800 NE 8th Street in Fort Lauderdale, FL near Sunrise Boulevard.

I received a flyer in the mail today announcing the Southern Pines Blues & BBQ Festival on December 12 - 13. The list of entertainers looks promising and includes Larry McCray, Johnnie Marshall, and Damon Fowler. A $10 ticket price provides admission for the entire weekend.

The winner of the FBA Triple Crown competition will receive a Willie Nelson autographed guitar and $2,000. The weekend event is sponsored in part by Old Whiskey River Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey and the Perry-Taylor County Chamber of Commerce.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

As loyal readers of the forum probably already know, brisket has become one of my favorite barbecued meats.

1. I started off with a visit to my local butcher and picked up a 16 lb. untrimmed brisket. I used to cook the brisket flats from Sam's Club, but after switching to "whole" briskets a few years ago, my results improved tremendously and so did my bbq contest results. A large, untrimmed brisket will cost $30-$35 depending on the weight and depending on whether it's a Certified Angus Beef (CAB) brisket. If it's available, I prefer CAB.

2. Last night I trimmed off some of the excess fat cap on the brisket, pierced the brisket with my Jaccard and rubbed it liberally with my Southern BBQ Rub. If you don't have a Jaccard, you can use a fork and pierce holes in the meat, which will allow the bbq rub to better penetrate the meat.

3. I placed the brisket in a double thickness plastic garbage bag and refrigerated it overnight. This allows time for the seasoning to penetrate the meat and also makes getting it on the cooker faster when it comes time to start the cooking process.

4. This morning I pre-heated the Weber Smokey Mountain to 250 degrees, added water to the water pan, removed the brisket from the refrigerator, and placed it directly on in the WSM. The health department recommends that meat spend less than 4 hours in the danger zone (i.e. internal meat temperature higher than 40 degrees and lower than 140 degrees.)

(I do not subscribe to the theory that allowing the meat to rise to room temperature will somehow improve the cooking results. I think it allows the potential for meat spoilage, although I’ve seen World Champion Barbecue Teams do it at competitions.)

5. Maintain cooker temp as low as possible near 190 degrees for as long as possible. I've found that the slower I can cook the brisket, the more consistent my results are.

6. I foil the brisket after about 5 hours, or once the bark begins to form.

7. I spritz with apple juice a few times during the cooking process as well. This seems to help with bark formation.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Place chicken wrap between two pieces of plastic wrap. Pound flat with a rolling pin until 1/4 inch thick. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Add boiled ham to center, sprinkle ham with 2 TBSP shredded Swiss cheese and 1/2 TSP of chopped chives. Roll up chicken, wrap in plastic and chill for one hour.

I used sandwich sliced ham. You can use boiled ham or cubed/chunked ham as alternatives.

I pre-heated two Dutch Ovens--10 inch on left and 12 inch on right.

After flouring, egg washing, and rolling in bread crumbs, I added the chicken to the 10 inch oven. I cooked for 25 minutes with the lid on and turned once after 15 minutes to brown both sides of the chicken breasts.

For the potatoes, Linda scrubbed with skins, browned 1 LB of bacon, drained grease, mixed in onions, mushrooms, and added the potatoes to the 12 inch oven. I then added 12 ounces of Sprite, 1 TSP of salt, 1/2 TSP of pepper. I cooked for 30 minutes with the lid on.

I added parsley and cheddar cheese when serving the potatoes and, although not pictured, Linda made homemade bread.

About Me

Brian Pearcy competed in bbq contests sanctioned by the Kansas City Barbecue Society and Florida Barbecue Association. He has published more than 940 articles about bbq cooking. Brian authors two bbq web sites: The BBQ Guy and BBQ Blog. His prize winning bbq spice rubs have earned numerous awards.

I stopped by the local butcher today to purchase a whole brisket for a cook this weekend. I got sticker shock! I think back to the good ol...

BBQ Tips

How to keep BBQ hot if you're not quite ready to eat it...

use an ice chest/ice cooler. Put some hot water in an empty ice chest, close the lid and let it set for 3 or 4 minutes. Drain the hot water and you've got yourself a portable BBQ warmer. We've kept pork butts warm this way for 6 or 7 hours.

How to keep your hands clean when cooking BBQ...

use powder free latex gloves. They come in packs of 100 at the local Sam's and will keep your hands clean. You'll maintain good sanitary practices too.

How to keep your spouse interested in the BBQ hobby...

get him/her involved in it with you. It's a lot of fun. You meet nice people and it's something you can do together.

How to keep your BBQ expenses in line with your budget...

Research all your purchases thoroughly. Make sure your purchase will do what you want it to do BEFORE you purchase it. For example, if you want to learn to cook whole hogs, you probably need to consider a big cooker or if you want to cook 10-15 racks spare ribs every weekend you're going to need something bigger than a WSM.

How to continually improve your BBQ recipes...

keep records of your cooking efforts including cook times, prepping techniques used and especially measurements for sauces or rubs and spices used. When you tweak the recipe for taste, only change one thing at a time--change the cook time, change the rub, change the sauce, but try to avoid completely changing everything all at once. Small changes to your technique and recipes will help you focus on the effects better and you'll be able to fine tune the product quality more efficiently.

How to BBQ Brisket

Brisket has become one of my favorite foods to barbecue. A pencil width slice of properly cooked brisket lightly coated with some Blues Hog BBQ Sauce is hard to beat.

I prefer to cook briskets in my Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM). I receive quite a few e-mails asking for help with barbecue brisket and thought I'd share some questions I received today.

Do you cook brisket with direct or indirect heat?

I use indirect heat and cook the brisket slowly at a temperature of 225-250 degrees.

Do you cook with fat cap up or fat cap down?

I begin cooking the brisket fat cap up for the first cooking segment. I don't flip until the brisket reaches 130 degrees or so. That's the point when the bark starts to harden a little bit. Then I flip it to fat side down. I used to skip this part but wanted a little more bark and found that this method will promote more bark formation.

Do you use foil?

I wrap in foil when the internal brisket temp is 165 degrees or if it's been cooking for at least 5 hours. Most of my briskets are completely done in 8 hours or so. I cook to an internal temp of 196-198 degrees and hold them in an Igloo cooler for a few hours to "rest" before slicing.

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